


Words, Words

by DeCarabas



Series: Fugitives Together [37]
Category: Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening
Genre: Blue Hawke, F/F, F/M, Fluff, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-30
Updated: 2016-12-30
Packaged: 2018-09-13 12:39:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 3,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9123937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeCarabas/pseuds/DeCarabas
Summary: Prompt ficlets, mostly fluff:1. Hawke/Anders, "an overwhelming desire to kiss"2. Hawke/Anders, "the sensation that someone is mentally undressing you"3. Hawke/Anders, "a kiss on the hand"4. Hawke/Anders, "the worship of one's self"5. Anders & Justice, "the smell of dry rain on the ground"6. Carver & Sigrun & Hawke's dog, "the urge to overcome melancholy by dancing"7. Velanna/Sigrun, "the smell of dry rain on the ground"8. Zevran/Mahariel, "slightly intoxicated or tipsy"9. Morrigan/Surana, "the use of abusive language to relieve stress or ease pain"10. Trevelyan/Leliana, "being attracted to someone's lips"11. Solas/Lavellan, "the philosophy that there is no point in worrying about events that cannot be changed"12. Solas/Lavellan, "the urge to overcome melancholy by dancing"





	1. Hawke/Anders, Basorexia

_(_ _Basorexia_ _\- an overwhelming desire to kiss.)_

Hawke finds Anders in the back room of the clinic, head down over his desk and pen in hand, shirtsleeves rolled up like he doesn’t feel the chill in the air.

“Got a letter from Carver today,” Hawke says, leaning over the desk. “He’s alive.” Well. Obviously. “A real Grey Warden now. Like something out of the stories. That’s going to take some getting used to.”

“Something out of the stories?” Anders echoes, amused. He looks up from his writing with a faint, distracted smile that fades when he meets Hawke’s eyes.

Hawke holds out the second envelope that had been enclosed with Carver’s letter. “There’s one for you, too.”

Anders takes it, turns it over and sees the Warden-Commander’s formal seal, two griffons stamped into blue wax. “…Oh.”

There’d been no hint in Carver’s letter about the contents of this one, nothing about how much or how little he’d told the Wardens about Anders and his spirit passenger and his hiding place here in Kirkwall, and Hawke can’t imagine his little brother spilling other people’s secrets to anyone, and maybe all the Warden-Commander knows is what Stroud saw. But. “If that’s—if I can—” Hawke stops. Starts again. “They found you because of us, what you did for Carver, so if you need anything, you’ve got it.”

“They were always going to find me sooner or later,” Anders says, like it’s nothing. “Anyway, I’m not leaving. I don’t care what the Commander’s got to say.”

Hawke’s absurdly relieved by that, even though it’s no different from what Anders had said when they first met, when Anders thought the Wardens had sent him. And he expects now they’ll have someone much like himself turning up on the clinic doorstep, someone who actually _is_ here to make the runaway Warden fall in line.

It hadn’t taken Hawke long to find Anders just based on a few rumors, and if he could find Anders so easily, then others can too. He’s going to have to have a talk with Varric, see what they can do about that.

Anders is silent as he reads, and Hawke looks away, giving him space. Looks over the papers spread across the desk instead. A new version of Anders’ flyer listing the templars’ abuses of power, demanding they be held accountable; most of those had been torn down or papered over by the time they’d returned from the Deep Roads. The new one’s longer, words crammed onto the page. Talking about Andraste and the Chant, and he leans over, curious, but then there’s a small, stifled noise from Anders.

And then Anders is up out of his chair. “I don’t—” he says, looking back and forth between the two pages in his hands. He holds one of them out to Hawke.

Formal orders. Long paragraphs about the need to monitor communities displaced by the Blight, a crucial part of ongoing research on resistance and immunity to the Blight disease. Authorization to draw on the Wardens’ account at one of Kirkwall’s major banks in furtherance of this. And a pardon for something described so vaguely that Hawke’s not entirely sure what it’s about, except that templars were involved; but the rest of it’s clear enough.

“…They’re… they mean the clinic. This is funding for the clinic,” Hawke says slowly. “They’re making this your official post?”

And then abruptly Anders’ arms are around him, and Hawke staggers a little under his weight, caught off guard. Catches his breath, breathing in the bright, sharp scent of the Fade, until Anders pulls back just as abruptly. “I’m sorry,” Anders says, “I just—I can’t believe it. Why would the Commander do this?”

Anders shakes his head, looking between him and the letter as if he’s not sure which one to turn to for answers, wide-eyed and bewildered and brimming with restless energy and Hawke wants very, very badly to kiss him. “So… you can stay.” And the way Anders looks at him, he feels like his thoughts must be plain on his face.

“I can stay,” Anders agrees, soft.


	2. Hawke/Anders, Gymnophoria

_(Gymnophoria - the sensation that someone is mentally undressing you.)_

Anders moves between the forms the Warden-Commander had taught him until his muscles strain with it, staff tracing slow and deliberate arcs through the air. Bare feet on the cold tiles of Hawke’s courtyard that he can’t quite think of as home yet. The household is quiet, and it’s easy to lose himself in the movement, the routine.

He used to hate morning warm-ups with the Wardens. Up before the sun. Pulse pounding in his ears, sweat along the back of his neck, strands of hair coming loose and dangling into his face. But his mind stills, narrows down to his breath, to the leather grip of the staff against his hand, the motion, clear and certain, the way Justice always used to feel.

He hears the door open behind him. And Hawke’s seen him at this routine countless times before, early mornings in camp along the coast; but when he turns with the shift from one form to the next, he finds Hawke just leaning against the doorframe, following every motion with interest.

When Anders asks if he’s planning on joining him, Hawke drags his gaze upward to meet his eyes. Shakes his head. “But don’t let me interrupt.” Sounding so curiously hopeful. And Anders has a hard time getting back to that quiet sense of clarity and certainty, but he doesn’t mind at all.


	3. Hawke/Anders, Baisemain

_(Baisemain - a kiss on the hand.)_

The clinic’s empty save for the two of them, lanterns dark and doors locked and desk sturdier than it looks, Anders kneeling between Hawke’s legs and Hawke’s hands curling around the wood until he smells smoke.

Smoke.

Hawke jerks his hands away as if he’s the one burned and not the desk, and stares down at a dark handprint that an absentminded slip of his magic has left singed into the surface. “Maker’s _sake_.”

Losing control like a kid; he hasn’t done that in years. On the bright side, this time it’s pretty unlikely to end in anyone running to tell the templars.

“Well,” Anders says, following his gaze to the handprint. He rests his head against Hawke’s thigh. “That’s flattering.”

“Sorry. I don’t usually—I’ll get you another desk.”

Anders’ eyes crinkle at the corners, and he shakes his head. “It happens.”

Though he’s not feeling in danger of setting anything on fire anymore, Hawke keeps his hands carefully raised, away from both desk and Anders. And Anders watches him, gaze softening.

He reaches for Hawke’s hand, and Hawke hesitates before letting him take it, lets him gently pull his hand to his lips. And he stares as Anders kisses his palm, still warm with mana. As if it’s perfectly natural.

“The desk’s all right,” Anders says. And he turns his face to rest his cheek against the palm of Hawke’s hand, not looking away from his eyes. “I like it better like this.”


	4. Hawke/Anders, Autolatry

_(Autolatry - the worship of one’s self._ )

Hawke’s sitting up with a book when Anders joins him in bed, all the pillows piled up behind him, and he stretches out his left arm to draw Anders to his side without looking up from the pages. “Listen to this,” Hawke says, and starts reading aloud.

And Anders remembers him mentioning something that morning about a banned book Athenril had finally tracked down for him. Rivaini seers.

And Hawke reads out these tall tales of possessed women who were welcomed, worshiped even. Communities guided by the wisdom of virtuous spirits. A healer possessed by a spirit of compassion, curing diseases that Anders knew very well were beyond even magical help. Someone who’d died for a moment, brought back to life by a spirit’s touch. Welcoming a spirit into their body and soul and then letting them go again, letting them just slip back into the Fade, as if it’s as easy as that, as if they could still tell where one ended and the other began.

“You realize it’s all a scam,” Anders says at last. Hawke sounds so hopeful, he hates to say it. But he has to. “You’ve heard Isabela’s stories.”

Hawke shifts, and after a moment’s silence Anders feels the brush of his lips against his brow. “Just because con men exist doesn’t mean there can’t be miracles too. There’s you.”


	5. Anders & Justice, Petrichor

_(Petrichor - the smell of dry rain on the ground.)_

There’s a thin trickle of water dripping by the entrance to the cave where he spent the night, slow, one drop at a time, and where the sunlight catches it there are these rainbow colors, faint flashes, barely visible, and Anders isn’t sure how he’s never noticed that before. It’s beautiful.

And he can almost hear Justice’s voice, like when he’d been standing in the Wending Wood and talking about the colors of the mortal world and all the beauty going overlooked, as if they hadn’t been at risk of death-by-demon-tree at any moment. As if he’s not at risk of death-by-justifiably-angry-Wardens at any moment now.

And he’s not sure if that rich smell of the earth is from last night’s rain or if it only seems so intense because he _can_ smell it, because he has a living body now and not—

“You like this?” he says out loud, like maybe that’ll help, like maybe if he’s talking _to_ Justice then he must be Anders. And Anders never cared for nature that much. Very pretty, sure, but there was _so much of it_ between Kinloch Hold and anywhere else. Somewhat lacking in taverns. Or baths. “Bet you’d have loved the Wilds.”

The morning is silent aside from a few bird calls in the distance.

He wasn’t really expecting to get an answer.

As a kid, he’d heard stories about apostates hiding among the Chasind, taking the form of birds and flying away whenever the templars came looking. Seeking them out in the Wilds had seemed like a grand plan at the time. Escape attempt number three. And he never managed to get those shapeshifting lessons he’d been after, but part of him thinks the shift from one shape to another is so easy and familiar, he’s sure he could—

Images of the twisted forms of abominations rise in his mind, and he takes a deep breath. Holds out his hand to let that trickle of water splash against his fingers, which are solid and not at all malleable and that’s part of the appeal of the mortal world, really.

That and the way the water catches the light. He can see that now.


	6. Carver & Sigrun & Hawke's dog, Tarantism

_(Tarantism - the urge to overcome melancholy by dancing.)_

The main hall of Vigil’s Keep is crowded with visiting nobility, and as the sun sets the sounds of music begin to drift up to the ramparts. Dane’s ears perk up. And he uncurls himself from around Sigrun’s feet and looks up at Carver expectantly.

It takes Carver a moment to get it. But there’s the sound of a lute, just like his mother used to play.

“Think your dog wants something from you,” Sigrun points out.

And Carver shakes his head, bends down to scratch beneath the dog’s chin. “He thinks we should be dancing.” His mother always wanted them all to join in, in one form or another. 

When he looks up again, now Sigrun’s the one giving him an expectant look.

“Well?” she says, folding her arms and leaning back against the wall with a not very good attempt at a straight face. “Go on, then. How come I’ve never seen you dance?”

“I wouldn’t want to embarrass the rest of you. You couldn’t keep up.” He ruffles the fur on top of Dane’s head, and the mabari puts up with it patiently. “No,” he tells him. “Don’t give me that look.”

Sigrun takes a sort of hop-skip over to Dane, and the dog allows her to take one of his paws and bow over it.

“What are you doing?”

“The Remigold, what’s it look like?”

“I don’t know what it looks like. Definitely not the Remigold.” Not that he has any idea how to dance the Remigold, either. But she makes a face at him.

“Eh, close enough. Come on, you two can take a break from worrying for one minute, it won’t kill you.”

“I wasn’t—why would you—” And now Dane’s got both paws raised in the air, like when he was a puppy and asking his brother to pick him up. They’re ganging up on him.

“You’re not really going to disappoint your dog, are you?”

Well, when she puts it like that.


	7. Velanna/Sigrun, Petrichor

_(Petrichor - the smell of dry rain on the ground.)_

Velanna worries her lower lip between her teeth as she sketches in her journal, painstakingly copying the shape of a lantern that had belonged to her ancestors.

“Stop looking at me and look at the map.”

“I can do both,” Sigrun says.

The commander’s map of Cadash Thaig was scribbled from memory and with question marks to indicate the Lights of Arlathan had been found _here, roughly, probably, somewhere around here_. But Sigrun’s pretty confident she knows where to look for the next one once Velanna’s finished here. And there’s a bright scent in the air where the lanterns are hidden, making her think of green and growing things and of Velanna when she’s been throwing lightning bolts around all at the same time, like a little breath of the surface. So she watches Velanna work, watches the way her frown of concentration tugs at the lines of her vallaslin.

“It’s difficult to picture what it must have been like for them,” Velanna says. Her eyes dart to the roof of the cavern far overhead. “Trying to make a life down here.”

A little like trying to make a life on the surface, Sigrun imagines - not that she’s alive, technically. Still. It definitely has its appeal.


	8. Zevran/Mahariel, Capernoited

_(Capernoited - slightly intoxicated or tipsy.)_

Mahariel looks down at him with dazed eyes, watching as Zevran ties a bandage into place around his thigh. It’ll do well enough to stop the bleeding until they can get back to the inn and let magic finish patching him up, but the stink of deathroot is unmistakable. Zevran washed out the wound as best he could; nothing to do for it now but to ride out the hallucinations.

“If you happen to see any giant crows trying to carry you off in the next few minutes, try to just go with it,” Zevran suggests. “…Though on second thought, with your luck, we might actually be attacked by giant birds. Hm.”

One side of Mahariel’s lips curves up at that. And Mahariel rests his hand lightly on Zevran’s hair for a moment, patting fondly, before raising his hands between them.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Mahariel signs. Which is probably the deathroot talking. And that’s good; it’s not a can’t-tell-friends-from-darkspawn kind of dose, then.

And Zevran only catches about half of what Mahariel says, but he knows the signs for _ma serannas_ and _lethallin_ , and he’s not sure whether he’s been promoted to lethallin or if Mahariel’s looking at him and seeing somebody else.


	9. Morrigan/Surana, Lalochezia

_(Lalochezia - the use of abusive language to relieve stress or ease pain.)_

The first time Laurel Surana saw an abomination, it died so easily. Just another minor trouble along the road, like bandits or wolves, and all he could think was, _is that all?_

He felt vaguely sick, standing over the body of the abomination’s old teacher; looked to Morrigan and found her unmoved. And that was isolating and reassuring all at once.

So maybe he shouldn’t have been surprised when the Circle left her just as unmoved.

“They allow themselves to be corralled like cattle, mindless. Now their masters have chosen death for them and I say let them have it.”

When he snapped at her— _this was his home_ —Morrigan looked utterly bewildered. And he couldn’t tell if the thought that he might have some lingering attachment hadn’t occurred to her or if the sentiment was truly so alien.

The abominations in the Circle tower died just as easily as that first one he’d met along the road, just as impersonal and unrecognizable; and Surana kept thinking of the possessed noble boy with the doting mother, the one who got the chance to run away and hide in his room and wait for a cure, a cure that should work just as well on any of them, and on any mage who’d ever failed their Harrowing, and he was very tired.

They’d come all this way to cure a single abomination, because that one child was worth the trouble.

And Morrigan was utterly absorbed by her mother’s grimoire, as if the tower full of abominations around them was of no consequence; and watching her turn the pages with a small smile on her face, he couldn’t maintain his irritation with her. There was something deeply wrong with him, he thought.


	10. Trevelyan/Leliana, Cheiloproclitic

_(Cheiloproclitic - being attracted to someone’s lips.)_

“One small life in exchange for a second chance at history? I always loved a bargain.”

Leliana says this to her with a smile, as if they’re sharing in some small and secret pleasure, and it’s just a faint upward quirk of her lips, and Trevelyan remembers those lips cracked and bloodless and she’s staring. 

“It was still a sacrifice and still noble.”

“And I would do it again.”

She believes it.

She’s not sure, after that, if Leliana is smiling more often or if it’s her imagination. The mages arrive from Redcliffe and Trevelyan can breathe a little easier now that her people have some degree of safety, whatever safety this title of Herald can offer them; and she doesn’t understand why Leliana seems to share her relief in that, why Leliana would fight so hard on their behalf, but she does.

Or maybe it’s the memory of watching her walk away, arrow drawn. The line of her back.

Their dour spymaster, unapproachable, overwhelming, a little terrifying, paints her lips a pale pink and teases her coworkers around the war table and sometimes takes out an old and well-worn symbol of Andraste and turns it over between her fingers with the smallest, softest smile.

Maybe it’s just that now Trevelyan’s watching for those smiles.


	11. Solas/Lavellan, Ayurnamat

_(Ayurnamat_ _-_ _the philosophy that there is no point in worrying about events that cannot be changed.)_

It’s the rifts that keep Lavellan up at night. A million and one things on Josephine’s list that need her personal attention, runners with messages and markers on the war table, all manner of problems that the Inquisitor alone can make the final decision on, and she can’t be everywhere at once, but she’s got this constant glowing green reminder that she ought to be out in the field right now. That and the diary she took off the remains of a man who’d tried to investigate the rifts on his own.

(She meant to hang onto the diary for his next of kin, whoever they are. But she keeps picking up these notes and letters and intending to send them on to someone who will want those last written words, and instead they’ve taken over her desk.)

Anyway. The stars are nice. Skyhold’s got some really nice views. Who needs sleep?

She enjoys the view from her balcony, and Solas massages her marked hand until the dull ache starts to fade, and she listens to the pleasant sound of his voice as he reminds her of the soldiers she’s got patrolling the areas around the rifts, Leliana’s ravens bringing news of more, the mages and templars working to close them without her, the safeguards they’ve put in place. “Perhaps you haven’t noticed, but you do have an army at your disposal. You don’t have to save the world entirely on your own.”

“I know. I do. …It sounds like I don’t trust our people to do their job, doesn’t it? That can’t be good for morale.”

“Hm.” His lips quirk upward, not looking up from her marked hand in his. “No. It sounds like you want to protect them. And the work you’re doing here gives them the tools to protect themselves.”


	12. Solas/Lavellan, Tarantism

_(Tarantism - the urge to overcome melancholy by dancing.)_

Skyhold’s courtyard is filled with new stalls clustered near the First Night bonfire, offering all manner of things hot and steaming or dusted with sugar or browned and skewered. And the space the troops usually use to train has been taken over by a group of musicians and dancers whirling around with linked arms, following the steps of a dance she doesn’t recognize, silhouetted against the light of the fire.

Skyhold may be held together with scaffolding and hope, but they’ve managed to cobble together two feasts in as many months. A _we’re not dead_ celebration after surviving the trek through the Frostbacks, and now—actually, she’s pretty sure this one’s a _we’re not dead_ celebration too. Survived the year.

Lavellan pops a lump of nug-on-a-stick into her mouth as she and Solas make their way between the stalls, picking their way over piles of snow turned to slush, and watches Solas’s cheeks and the tip of his nose turn bright red with the cold. And she looks up as a raven swoops low overhead, returning late.

The rookery’s been crowded with people trying to get messages out, those who couldn’t leave to be home for their midwinter celebrations. She’s been working on her own letter off and on, meaning to send it with one of Varric’s contacts once the roads are cleared; he’s been keeping in touch with her brother’s new clan for years on behalf of a friend of his, and she trusts that more than she trusts messenger birds. 

She wonders if Solas has somewhere he’d rather be too; if he can just check in on his old village in his dreams, if it works that way. But they’re here for now, and the fire’s roaring and the drums are playing, and she’s watched the dance long enough that she thinks she can follow the steps.


End file.
